News & Events

Claxton Guitars is pleased to announce that composer/guitarist extroidinaire Raymond Gonzalez will be performing on a selection of Ed's guitars in the Santa Cruz Art of Guitar Exhibition and Festival Concert Series. The concert takes place on Friday, June 23rd at 7:30 PM at the R. Blitzer Gallery. Raymond will also be promoting the June release of his latest CD "Unknown Mariner" featuring original pieces for solo guitar. If you're in the area please stop by and hear inspiring music and view the Exhibit of locally made hand crafted instruments in a Gallery setting.

The Second Edition of the Santa Cruz Art of Guitar Exhibition & Festival will take place from June 2nd to July 15th, 2017 in Santa Cruz, California. Many talented guitar makers from Santa Cruz County will exhibit a wide variety of hand made instruments in the R. Blitzer Gallery throughout the 6 week Festival. In addition, there will be a number of concerts and guitar related events in several venues around town. For complete information please visit santacruzluthiers.org

The first ever Santa Barbara Acoustic Instrument Celebration will take place Sept. 30 - Oct.2 in Santa Barbara, California. This promises to be a great event featuring the work of over 100 guitarmakers from around the globe, concerts and seminars by many world class musicians, and much more. We will be exhibiting several Claxton guitar models including a rosewood EM cutaway, a rosewood Malabar, a Composer model, and an in progress Maple/Italian spruce Malabar that can be veiwed by clicking the title above. Guitar great Doug Young will be performing our demo concert Saturday at 5:20 in the "Lounge". We hope to see you there!

I recently had the pleasure of re-storing one of my Parlor sized guitars that I built in 1977 in Austin, Texas. It had been badly damaged by the TSA and required extensive repairs. The soundboard was made from Western red cedar and the back and sides are Brazilian rosewood that cost a whopping $65. at the time. High grade Indian rosewood was about $17. in those days - in case you find that interesting! It is a truly beautiful sounding guitar and plays like butter due to it's 24" scale length.

This Malabar Model features an Italian spruce top and a rare set of very old flitch sawn Brazilian rosewood. The 12-fret neck is 1-7/8 inches wide at the nut and the scale length is 25-3/8 inches. It is being lovingly built in memory of our recently departed dog Rosie.

We would like to thank Doug Young for his beautiful tune "Rosie's Last Dance" which can be heard on the Home Page of this website. It was recorded on the Claxton Jumbo Model featured below.

This Jumbo model was commissioned by a long time customer who wanted an "EM on steroids". The width of the lower bout will be 17" and the depth at the tail end will be 4-5/8". The body woods are old Brazilian rosewood and "Lucky Strike" redwood. I will be adding additional photographs as construction progresses, so please check back from time to time.

European maple has long been one of my favorite tonewoods on a 12-fret guitar. When used in a particular manner, it's unique and malleable tonal characteristics can produce a surprisingly warm and resonant voice. Maple's quick response and clarity of tone present a refreshing alternative to the sound of a rosewood guitar.

The photo titled "Before and After" gives an accurate representation of the color of the guitar. The other photos do not.

I have wanted to restore this “00” style Claxton for the past 30 years but somehow never got around to it until recently. It is the only guitar that I have kept from my years building guitars in Austin, Texas in the 1970”s. It is number 17 and it was built in 1974. Please click the link above to view a photo.

Early on in it’s life it was thrown out the window in the snow in Colorado to escape a fire in the condo where it was hanging out, and then suffered through a year as First Mate aboard sailing vessels in the Mediterranean.

The repairs required a spline down the center seam of the top, a new bridge, nut, saddle, tuners, and frets. Plus a little spirit varnish touch-up on the top. No neck re-set or other structural repairs were necessary...talk about a road warrior!

Anyway, I’m very pleased to have this guitar back to it’s original playing condition and it is once again serving as one of my shop and “loaner” guitars

For several years prior to building my first guitar in Austin, Texas in 1972, I made a variety of artistic and archaic folk instruments such as the harp, bouzouki, oud, hurdy gurdy, drum, hammer dulcimer, marimba, and flute. I also fooled around with primitive experimental instruments made from gourds, bones, tortoise shells, bamboo, goat and snake skin, chainmail, and gut strings. My rendition of an 11th or 12th century Greek rebec can be viewed in the link above. As the rebec migrated West, it developed a raised fingerboard like the modern violin, much to the delight of the string players in Medieval times.

It's no secret that Santa Cruz is home to a vibrant lutherie community. The work of twenty local guitar makers will be on exhibit from February 1 through March 15 at the Blitzer Gallery in Santa Cruz. For complete information please visit santacruzluthiers.org.

There will be a number of concerts and guitar related events throughout the festival. Claxton guitars will be featured in several of these events. To find out more, please click on the header above.

On Tuesday evening, February 11, MURIEL ANDERSON and STEVE PALAZZO will be playing my guitars in an intimate concert at the Blitzer Gallery. For a sneak preview of what's in store please check out Muriel's great new CD "Nightlight Daylight" and it's first ever fibre optic cover: http://murielanderson.com/nightlight

We showcased my guitars at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival August 9th -11th in Santa Rosa, CA. We had a great time seeing friends, old and new, and hearing a lot of great music. We would especially like to thank everyone who stopped by our table to say hi and to see and play my guitars.

(Click the event title above to see the photos)

At the Festival, I had my newest model, the parlor-sized "Composer" along with the other four guitar models, including the 12-fret "Malabar," 14-fret "EM", "Traditional" OM and my classical "Concert" guitar.

Several months ago, I decided to challenge myself with a new project, to stimulate the creative juices. To accompany the new "Composer" parlor-style guitar, I created a one-of-a-kind wooden case hand made using Port Orford Cedar and Ebony. Besides having a lot of fun designing and crafting the new case, it turned out to be quite beautiful, if I do say so myself.

"I think this is the best guitar I have ever heard or played..." - Karl K., Washington D.C.